Eloisa's Adventure

by King, Rebecca

  “Eloisa.”

  “No, Cissy,” Eloisa snapped. She put her tea cup onto the table beside her with a little too much precision and took a moment to calm herself.

  “Oh, Eloisa, I understand, I really do. Once you have had some sleep and rest like Lord Pendlebury suggested, you will feel better, you’ll see. In a few days’ time, you will think differently, I am sure of it.”

  “No, I won’t Cissy,” Eloisa snapped. She couldn’t even consider the notion, not even for a second, and wasn’t going to listen to her sister harp on about it for the next several weeks. She had to nip this particular idea in the bud before it even started. “I am never going to a ball.”

  “But Eloisa –”

  “Listen to me, Cissy,” Eloisa demanded. She had no idea where her anger came from but she just couldn’t ignore it. “I don’t belong at social gatherings of that kind. One thing I have learned about Lord Pendlebury is that he inhabits an entirely different world to the one I live in. I know that I don’t belong in his world. I have known it all along really, I just ignored it because I wanted to dance. Just being at Simeon’s castle; seeing the luxurious décor; the size of the building; the things he takes for granted that other people struggle to get; it’s all an entirely different world away from mine. I don’t belong there. People like him know it. I know it. It is a ridiculous and foolish thing to consider. To even dance outside and pretend to be like them, even for one night, is just accepting that I will never belong. I will always belong outside in the garden, Cissy.” Her voice broke. Tears streamed down her face but she didn’t even notice them. She was suddenly hit with an avalanche of pain that she couldn’t run hard enough to get away from. The hurt hit her with such force that she felt unable to regain her balance. Strangely, she didn’t think she would ever be able to find solace in the life she had been dealt now, and wasn’t sure what to do about it.

  “Eloisa,” Cissy whispered.

  It hurt Eloisa even more to see the sympathetic tears on Cissy’s lashes, and she felt even more unworthy for bringing her sister such upset.

  “Please, don’t ever mention going to a ball again,” Eloisa asked quietly. She placed a comforting hand on her sister’s shoulder but could still see the instinctive objection in her eyes.

  “Eloisa.”

  Before Cissy could say anything else, Eloisa offered her a shaky smile and hurried toward the door. “Now, I am going to get a bath and into some dry clothes. Then I will set about getting dinner sorted.”

  She didn’t wait for Cissy to reply, and hurried up the stairs without a backward look.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Simeon crept through the woods at the rear of the castle and watched Renwick’s friend edge carefully around the corner of the house. Thanks to Jeremiah’s cunning, Simeon had already made a show of leaving the castle via the driveway, with Jeremiah following closely behind in his carriage.

  As far as Renwick was concerned, the castle was now empty. He appeared to be wasting no time getting his hands on the contents he had so carefully stacked in the garden room. Simeon watched his cousin carry another armful of contents toward the woods on the opposite side of the gardens and disappear into the trees for the third time in the past half an hour.

  “How do you want to deal with this?” Jeremiah whispered. Although Renwick was too far away to hear them, he still kept his voice at a whisper.

  Simeon looked at him. “I am going to take a look inside, and see what they are taking out first.”

  “Wait,” Jeremiah whispered, and placed a hand on Simeon’s arm to stop him leaving their shelter.

  “What?”

  Jeremiah nodded toward the woods. They didn’t have to wait long before the second man, the man who had made the offer for the castle only yesterday, emerged from the trees and followed Renwick back into the house.

  “His accomplice,” Simeon explained when Jeremiah looked at him askance.

  “You take Renwick; I will take the accomplice.”

  “We need to wait for the magistrate to arrive first,” Simeon replied. He glanced down the driveway but couldn’t be sure which direction the magistrate would come from. The magistrate had promised to round up as many men as he could before heading over to the castle. Because the village was through the woods Renwick was using, Simeon suspected that reinforcements would come from that direction. If they did, Renwick would be the first to come across them.

  “Do we go inside and wait for them, or wait in the woods?” Jeremiah asked as he watched the door close behind Renwick’s associate.

  Simeon shook his head. “There are secret passageways everywhere. Renwick grew up in that house and knows every inch of it like the back of his hand. We are better off out here.”

  “They must have horses through those trees.”

  Simeon nodded. There was a meadow on the opposite side of the trees, a few miles away from Mitchelham village. If he was Renwick, he would leave the horses in the meadow. All he would then have to do, if he needed to escape, was run through the woods. He would be able to race toward the village, or join the main road that led all the way to London in the opposite direction before anyone could catch him.

  “Some of the magistrate’s men should see them,” Simeon growled.

  “They could think the horses are ours,” Jeremiah countered.

  “I am not taking my eyes off that castle until Renwick reappears.”

  “There is something I don’t understand,” Jeremiah sighed. “How does he expect to get the contents away on a horse? I know there are two of them, but how does he expect to squirrel away the portraits?”

  Simeon considered that. “They must have a cart around here somewhere.”

  Having to take his eyes off the house while Renwick was inside didn’t sit too well with Simeon, but Jeremiah was right. They needed to see how Renwick hoped to get his stolen goods away from the area.

  “Let’s go,” he sighed.

  It took far longer than they expected to make their way across the uneven forest floor but they eventually emerged from the trees right next to Renwick’s waiting horses.

  “Over there, look,” Jeremiah whispered and pointed toward the road that led to Mitchelham.

  A single cart was heading toward the open gate at the bottom of the field. Simeon had no idea who was driving it; he had never seen the man before in his life. It made him wonder just how many men Renwick had working for him, and how much Renwick had already stolen from the castle already because this seemed to be quite a smoothly run operation.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Take the saddles off the horses. We can let the horses loose in the field. That puts Renwick and his cohort on foot. First, let’s wait for the cart to get here though. We need to catch the driver too.”

  The sudden cracking of twigs beside them made them both spin around. Simeon heaved a sigh of relief when he saw the magistrate with several men whom he presumed were villagers.

  “I have got ten men with me,” the magistrate reported somewhat breathlessly. He looked around the woods and meadow askance. “Where are they?”

  “One is on the cart down there. Two are still inside the castle at the moment,” Simeon reported. “Renwick is in the castle.”

  “An army deserter, you say?”

  Simeon nodded. “I have dispatched a letter to Major Haughton at Hattington Marches, informing him of the deception. They should send someone to fetch him from you.”

  “Then we had better keep him secure until they do,” the magistrate declared firmly. “My men are getting into position around the castle as we speak. Meantime, we will get the one on the cart. Be careful mind, my men are armed and have instructions to fire.”

  The driver was busy guiding the cart through the narrow entrance, and didn’t realise what was happening until it was too late to take evasive action. His downfall was over so swiftly that if Simeon hadn’t watched it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t have believed it possible.

  As soon as the d
river was bundled to the ground on the opposite side of the wall, his coat and hat was adopted by one of the magistrate’s men. He climbed aboard the cart but didn’t move it out of the entrance; just sat staring at his boots.

  Satisfied that it was only a matter of time now before Renwick was taken out of his life once and for all, Simeon waited. It didn’t take long before Renwick reappeared in the meadow with his colleague. Both men held boxes that overflowed with stolen items as they slammed to a stop and studied the meadow.

  “What the hell is that bloody idiot doing, Barney?” Renwick snarled as he stared at the cart. “Why hasn’t he come closer?”

  “I told him to wait by the trees,” Barney snapped. “Not the other end of the sodding field.”

  “Come on. I will drive the blasted thing up here myself if I have to,” Renwick grumbled. He didn’t stop to see if his friend was with him before he hurried off across the field with his ill-gotten gains.

  Simeon, Jeremiah, and the magistrate’s men all followed. It was only when Renwick called to the cart driver and he didn’t bother to respond or look up, that Simeon’s cousin realised that something was amiss. He turned to look at his associate, Barney, and then noticed the magistrate’s men over his shoulder.

  Simeon met his cousin’s wide eyes, and felt an air of dispassionate disinterest toward anything the future had in store for his irascible cousin. Any harsh lessons life threw at him now were well and truly deserved as far as Simeon was concerned. He could feel no compassion or pity for anything his cousin endured as a result of his cowardly actions. Especially given what the man had done to him and Eloisa.

  “Did you arrange this little welcome party, cousin mine?” Renwick snarled.

  “Of course I did. You didn’t think that I would allow you to escape a second time round, did you?” Simeon challenged as he nodded toward with the box. “Helping yourself to my property again are you, Renwick?”

  Renwick dropped the box onto the floor and turned toward the cart. It was clear that he was considering fleeing, but the cart driver had already removed the cloak and hat, and had his gun trained on Renwick.

  His cousin wasn’t about to give in without a fight though. To everyone’s surprise, Renwick walked toward the cart with his hands up. The man aboard jumped to the ground and frowned as his quarry approached. As soon as he was within striking distance, Renwick suddenly lunged at him and knocked him off balance.

  The loud blast of the gun was the last thing Simeon heard.

  Eloisa prowled around the house and tried to ignore the boredom and worry that had gradually settled over her during the past week.

  It seemed like only yesterday that Simeon had tossed her out of his life without a backward look. A lifetime had passed since then but it had done little to ease her pain. She ached; yearned to see him again, and was curious to know what had happened with his cousin Renwick, but had no way of finding out. Given his cold attitude toward her the last time she had seen him, she rather suspected that if she wrote to him, he wouldn’t write back. It galled her that she didn’t even know where he called home. He had told her that it was in Cumbria somewhere but he hadn’t mentioned a house name. She couldn’t even write to him at Mitchelham Castle because she knew that he was most probably not there. He had ostensibly vanished from her life, and she hated it. Moreover, she hated him for just walking away from her.

  “Eloisa, please take a seat dearest. You are wearing me out,” Cissy chided. She dropped her sewing into her lap and studied her sister in the candlelight.

  Over the course of the past week, Eloisa had struggled to eat, had prowled around the house at all hours of the day and night, and swung wildly from snapping for no reason to being weepy with little or no provocation.

  “If I didn’t know better, I would say that you were in love with your rescuer,” Cissy murmured almost conversationally. She picked her sewing up and studied it carefully, but all of her attention was focused firmly on her sister.

  Eloisa glared at her. “I am no such thing,” she snapped just a little too defensively to be truthful. “He is out of my league,” she added a little more softly. Although her words were bold, she couldn’t hide the pain in them. She knew from Cissy’s compassionate look that she had recognised the emotion behind them.

  “He is a very handsome man,” Cissy said casually.

  “He is a lord,” Eloisa countered as if that explained everything about him.

  “He looked upon you with considerably more interest than a mere rescuer would,” Cissy sighed.

  “He was a gentleman.”

  Well, almost, hovered in the air, but Eloisa didn’t actually say the words. She saw Cissy frown, but couldn’t tell her sister what had really happened. She knew Cissy wouldn’t understand.

  “He is a very nice man. He looked after you,” Cissy reminded her. “He gave you shelter when you needed it.”

  “He showed me consideration in my hour of need I’ll grant you, but anyone would have done the same. He is a lord, Cissy, and has his reputation to uphold. Think of the scandal he would bring upon himself if he had refused to help me and I died on his doorstep,” Eloisa countered. She couldn’t bring herself to admit that he was a nice man who had behaved with care and consideration toward her. Well, until the last morning that is.

  She turned toward the window and stared blindly out at the back garden. It was raining again, but had pretty much been raining since the day she had arrived at Mitchelham. The stormy weather seemed to match her mood. She missed him. In those few brief days they had been together, he had become an integral part of her life. Now that he was gone, she wasn’t quite sure what to do with herself and hated him for it. She had never felt this lost and alone before, and couldn’t find a way to work around the empty hole where her heart should be.

  “You know, you really must accept the invitation to Lord Aldwich’s ball next month. Mr de Lisle is quite keen for you to go,” Cissy suggested, not for the first time.

  “I told you Cissy, I am not going to another ball. It’s as simple as that.”

  She suddenly needed to get some fresh air. She was so sick of being stuck indoors, listening to Cissy’s persistent reminders that about the forthcoming ball that she just couldn’t stand any more.

  “I am going for a walk,” she sighed, and hurried out of the room before Cissy could offer to accompany her.

  “Eloisa,” Cissy said when Eloisa had reached the door. “He will come back for you, you know. I am sure of it.”

  “I know that he won’t,” Eloisa countered, and quietly left.

  She knew Cissy meant well, but Eloisa was aware that anyone who was heartless enough to cast someone aside the way Simeon had turned his back on her, wouldn’t re-establish their acquaintance. Not only that but before they had left the castle, the harsh way he had treated her had left her with no doubt that he considered what they had shared to be nothing more than a terrible mistake.

  She, on the other hand, was completely heartbroken. It wasn’t that she expected any declarations of affection, or promises of a future courtship from him. She just wanted to know that she mattered to him in some way. Her wounded pride wanted confirmation that he hadn’t just been using her. She wanted to know that he had come to care for her just as much as she cared for him. She hardly knew him so what she felt couldn’t be love, could it? She just liked him – a lot. This wasn’t love. It couldn’t be love.

  What did it feel like to be in love with someone? The ache around her heart was something that had certainly settled in after Simeon’s departure. She had loved her father, but hadn’t been this heartbroken when he had passed away. The yearning to see Simeon again was so strong that she wanted to go to Mitchelham and demand answers from him. On the other hand, she didn’t want to see him again. She couldn’t stand the thought of coming face to face with that cold, aloof man who had said goodbye to her the other morning.

  No, she was better off trying to find some way of putting him, and Mitchelham, out of her life once
and for all. Then she could set about getting on with the rest of her life. If only she knew how.

  She had no sooner turned out of the end of the road than a quite resplendent carriage pulled up outside of her house. The liveried footman jumped down and hurriedly dropped the step before he stood to one side to allow the rather dapper gentleman inside to step down.

  Simeon groaned when he tried to sit upright and sharp pain lanced his shoulder and stole his breath. He sat perfectly still while he waited for the discomfort to subside, and then tried again.

  “You really must keep still, you know,” his butler, Henry, chided.

  “I have to get up, Henry. I can’t lie here all day,” Simeon protested.

  “You have been here all week, sir,” Henry informed him briskly.

  “A week, you say?” Simeon’s voice was querulous. He landed a look on his butler that was so vicious that the man took a wary step away from the side of the bed.

  “I am afraid so, sir,” the butler replied warily.

  “Why did you let me sleep so long?”

  “You are poorly. You have stitches in your arm where you were shot. The doctor said that you needed to rest,” Henry explained, but Simeon was having none of it.

  “I have to get to her,” he grunted as he swung his legs over the side of the bed.

  “Her, sir?” Henry queried with a frown. He didn’t say as much to the master but, over the course of the past week, the master had been found to mumble in his sleep on numerous occasions about a young lady called Eloisa. He rather suspected that was the woman the master was talking about now.

  The thought that darling Eloisa had waited to hear from him for a whole week was something that riled Simeon’s temper. He was almost snarling by the time he forced himself to his feet. Unfortunately, the room immediately began to swirl around him and he collapsed onto the bed with a bitter curse.

  The doorbell peeled suddenly at the back of the house. The sound of it made Henry glance worriedly at the door.